a client asked me to look at one recently which had stopped chilling in the fridge section though the freezer seemed to be fine.
on investigation i found that these have a weird and completely lame system of having a heat exchanger in the freezer section with a fan and some ducting to blow cold air up into the fridge compartment.. the temperature being controlled by a probe attached to a swinging gate over the duct...
the problem was an iced up heat exchanger and probe in the bottom section which led the unit to believe everything was cool..
de-frosted it and it is running fine, but what a rubbish design !!
had the same problem fridge was not working take off back panel in freezer and unclip the other panel and used hair dryer to melt a shed load of ice and i thought it was frost ice free will not be buying hotpoint again when this one goes bad design however saved me buying a new fridge
john
March 2013
Our hotpoint ff175 stopped cooling/ freezing properly earlier this week. Scoured the internet and found this tip about checking heat exchanger for ice. Followed the above advice last night about defrosting it, just got in from work and fridge and freezer are both working perfectly. Was so simple (and cheap, just the cost of a screwdriver) to do. Thanks so much for the tip, now off to cancel the order for a new fridge freezer! Anyone experienceing the same problem, would 100% recommend giving this a try!
Erin
November 2010
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